Mr Monteith, 50, and his wife, 47, are being held in separate wings of Malaga's grim Alhaurin de la Torre prison.

Opened eight years ago and designed for 1500 inmates it is now one of Spain's most overcrowded and dangerous jails holding more than 3000 prisoners, 400 of them foreign.

Mum-of-four Mrs Monteith fled to Benalmadena on the Costa del Sol two years ago while facing fraud charges in the North.

She was released on bail from North Tyneside's North Shields police station in 2000 facing trial at Newcastle later in the year.

Mrs Monteith is expected to face a more traumatic time behind bars than her husband.

The women's unit has just a handful of foreigners who inmates with babies bully for cash.

Deborah Coughlin, a London girl who spent six months there on drugs charges which were dropped said: "She'll be going through hell in there.

"The noise, the fights, the way they pick on you for being a foreigner drives you mad."

Mrs Monteith has claimed she and her husband are being supervised by the prison authorities in case they try to hurt themselves.

Meanwhile, the Sunday Sun has been told that as well as finding Mrs Dyson's jewellery in their villa, there had been inconsistencies in the couple's statements.

Forensic tests are still being carried out on items found in the Monteiths' plush villa and Mrs Dyson's modest flat.

The couple have been charged under articles 139 and 140 of Spain's penal code and could face up to 25 years behind bars.

The couple, originally from Whitley Bay, North Tyneside, feared it could be up to eight years before their case came to trial.

However, Mr Ortega said that at the most it will take four years . . . and is more likely to take two. He said: "There are still a couple of things the investigating magistrate has asked us to clear up and we are still in the process of doing that.

"But we are not looking for any other people in connection with this very horrible murder.

"We are satisfied we have the right people."

Troubled life that murder victim Diana left behind

Murdered Diana Dyson emigrated to Spain to escape her troubled past and start a new life, the Sunday Sun can reveal.

The wealthy widow was plagued by mental health problems and left devastated by the suicides of both her husband and son, who killed themselves within 18 months of each other.

And just weeks before her 93-year-old husband took an overdose she tried to take her own life.

Diana, who moved to the Costa del Sol late last year, was found dead, aged 63, last month.

She had been beaten, stabbed and suffocated at her luxury Torremolinos apartment.

Tyneside couple Anne-Marie and Richard Monteith, who befriended her, were arrested on suspicion of murder and are being held in a Malaga prison.

Diana's son Darren killed himself in 2000 while working in Belgium but she did not find out he was dead until four days after he was cremated.

She married former vet Leonard Horne in 1999 after a 15-year friendship. Wealthy Leonard was a wheelchair-using deaf and blind widower.

But Diana was two-timing him with long-term boyfriend Cyril Emmett. Cyril met the mum-of-four after she replied to a lonely hearts advert, in which he described himself as "moderately wealthy".

The 73-year-old said: "She was obsessed with money and used to flaunt it to everyone.

"I know there must be thousands of pounds floating around somewhere.

"I just hope her money isn't the reason she died."

Diana and her first husband frequently split up and during one break-up he wrote her out of his will.

But four days before he killed himself in May last year, he re-instated her.

Diana inherited all his money and an impressive white-painted bungalow they shared in Sheffield, South Yorkshire.